Luongo sparks Canucks

Goalie provides the difference in shootout victory

Canucks 2, Blackhawks 1 (so)

The kindly puckheads at the Canadian cable-television hockey mother ship produced this statistic Friday in advance of the Blackhawks attempting to solve Vancouver goalie Roberto Luongo:

Luongo has faced more shots--in excess of 4,000--over the last two seasons than any NHL goalie.

Across the ice later that evening would be Patrick Lalime, whose personal shots-against account was a bit leaner: Since last April, he has faced 34 shots. Total. In one game.

He stopped all of them, though, for the Hawks on Feb. 7 against these same Canucks.

So it was at least somewhat logical that as the offenses slogged along at the United Center, and as it would require overtime and beyond for one to prove less middling than the other, that the Canucks would survive with a 2-1 shootout victory.

And what a shock: The goalie made the difference. Luongo stoned the Hawks' Martin Havlat and Martin St. Pierre in the shootout, while Vancouver's Trevor Linden and Brendan Morrison converted to seal the victory.

The game was scoreless through two periods before the Hawks struck first--with a bit of unwitting oomph provided by Morrison. On a faceoff in the Vancouver zone five minutes into the third period, Morrison appeared to pull the puck back as much as St. Pierre sent it on goal.

Either way it zinged toward Luongo and glanced off to the Hawks' Patrick Sharp, who collected the rebound and deposited it high on Luongo's glove side for a 1-0 lead.

There it stayed, despite each team having a power-play chance before the end of regulation. The Hawks' power play once again failed miserably in the extra period after Morrison was sent off for holding. Overtime expired in stirring fashion: Luongo stoned Havlat on a breakaway as time expired.

Neither team managed more than intermittent flickers of offense through the first two periods, and none of those amounted to a score.

For Luongo the stinginess was no surprise, what with his 2.34 goals-against average coming into Friday that ranked fifth in the league. Still, some acrobatics were required to stonewall the Hawks early. Not four minutes in, Luongo drifted outside of the crease and got caught on his rear end while the Hawks' Denis Arkhipov sized up a wide-open net.

Arkhipov fired and Luongo lunged, snaring the puck while splayed on his stomach--denying the Hawks' first and best chance through two periods.

Lalime, meanwhile, was making his second start after back surgery in September sidelined him for months.

Gymnastics on Luongo's level weren't required to stymie the Canucks through the first two periods, though he got tested during a second-period Vancouver power play, snuffing a point-blank redirect by Daniel Sedin and stuffing a Lukas Krajicek slap shot.

One-timers

Hawks defenseman Jassen Cullimore continued to familiarize himself with the press box Friday, a healthy scratch for the sixth time in seven games. . . . The Hawks finished the season 0 of 20 on the power play against the Canucks. . . . The Hawks are 1-9 in their last 10 games at the United Center.